Recent years have seen significant advances in practical applications of continuous speech recognition (CSR). For example, it is now possible to purchase commercially available CSR application software packages suitable for installation and use in a conventional personal computer for home or office.
It has also been proposed to provide CSR as an additional feature of conventional central dictation systems.
Known central dictation systems take a number of forms. In one typical variety of central dictation system, which is frequently used in hospitals, the hard disk drive or drives of a server computer is used as the central voice recording device. Dictate stations are provided at a number of locations in the hospital to permit physicians to dictate directly onto the central recorder. The dictate stations may be in the form of hand microphones or telephone-style handsets, and are connected by analog or digital signal paths to the central recorder. The dictate stations customarily include control switches which allow the authors to control conventional dictation functions, such as record, stop, rewind, fast forward, play, etc. In addition, the dictate stations typically include a keypad and/or bar code reader to permit the author to enter data to identify himself or herself as well as the patient to whom the dictated material is related.
Typical central dictation systems also include a number of transcription stations connected to the central recorder. The transcription stations commonly include a personal computer which runs a word processing software package, as well as listening and playback-control devices which allow the transcriptionist listening access to voice files stored in the central recorder and control over playback functions. Dictation jobs awaiting transcription in the central recorder are assigned to transcriptionists according to conventional practices.
It has been proposed to incorporate CSR functions in the central recorder/server of a central dictation system. The CSR function is applied at the server to a dictation file to generate a text document, and then the text document and voice file are made available to transcriptionists who edit and correct the text while reviewing the voice files. The preprocessing of the voice files by CSR can be expected to produce significant improvements in productivity for the transcription function.
In a prior co-pending patent application Ser. No. 09/099,501, which is commonly assigned with the present application and entitled "Dictation System Employing Computer-To-Computer Transmission of Voice Files Controlled by Hand Microphone", it was proposed to provide a central dictation system utilizing networked computers. According to this proposal, some of the networked computers have hand microphones interfaced thereto and constitute dictation stations, whereas others of the networked personal computers have headsets and foot pedals interfaced thereto and constitute transcription stations. The e-mail system of the computer network is used to transport voice files from the dictation stations and to the transcription stations. In addition, the e-mail system may be used to forward dictation files into a central dictation recorder, from which transcriptions can play back the dictation files.
It would be desirable to implement CSR functions in a central dictation system in a manner which increases capacity of the system and lessens burdens on the central recorder/server. It would also be desirable to provide an all-digital system in which the transmission bandwidth of the system is not unduly burdened.